Church of St Mark, front wall and gate piers

Church of St Mark, front wall and gate piers

Parish church built in 1846–7 in Early English Gothic style by Francis Niblett for the Diocesan Church Building Association. The building was altered in 1863–4 and again in 1888–90, the latter work carried out by R W Drew.

The church is constructed of snecked freestone with ashlar dressings beneath slate roofs. The aisle roofs are clad in sheeting, and there is a stone spire.

The plan comprises a five-bay nave with wide aisles that stop one bay short of the west end, a south-west tower and spire, and a three-bay chancel with an attached south chapel, north vestry, and organ chamber.

The west front facing Kingsholm Road is divided into three parts: the north aisle, the gabled nave, and the south tower. The aisle features set-back gabled buttresses and a two-light Geometrical window with a quatrefoil in plate tracery beneath a hoodmould. The nave has a pointed doorway with shafts at each side and a moulded arch with hoodmould. Above a stringcourse is a tall window of three lancet lights, with the central light broader and taller than the flanking pair, framed by nook shafts and a moulded arch with hoodmould. At the north-west angle of the nave, which projects beyond the aisle, are set-back gabled buttresses between which rises a plain octagonal pinnacle. The tower projects forward and is divided into three stages by stringcourses. The two lower stages have buttresses set back at the top of the first stage and gablets below the offsets at the top of the second stage. The lower stage contains a tall lancet in the west wall and a doorway in the south wall, which forms the principal entrance. The middle stage has a small lancet in each exposed face. Each face of the top stage is arcaded with ringed shafts carrying moulded arches; the outer arcades are blind with a central light fitted with a timber louvre. An arcaded corbel table sits below the splay-footed spire, which has a gabled lucarne on each cardinal face and a weathercock at its apex.

The north and south walls of the aisles have plain lancets in each bay, except for the westernmost lancet on the north elevation, where there is a second doorway. Bays are marked by gabled buttresses. A clerestory with quatrefoil openings runs above each bay, topped by an arcaded corbel table. The north wall of the chancel is abutted by the vestry and organ chamber, both with gabled roofs running northwards at right-angles to the main body of the church. The vestry's east wall features small lancet windows—one single light and two pairs of lights—and a doorway. The organ chamber has a window in its north gable matching the west window of the north aisle. The chancel's east wall bears three stepped lancets under a continuous hoodmould and a quatrefoil at the gable apex. On the south side, a parallel gabled chapel has a doorway and two pairs of lancets with trefoiled heads in its south wall and a two-light window in its east wall.

Inside, the walls are plastered with exposed stone dressings. Windows have plain, plastered reveals. The nave arcades comprise eight circular and four octagonal piers (not alternating) with boldly moulded octagonal capitals and bases, and double-chamfered arches with hoodmoulds. The clerestory windows feature arched embrasures, with stone corbels between them carrying the arch-braced principals of the open timber roof. At each aisle's east end is an arch: the north opens as a two-light unglazed stone-tracery window into the organ chamber, while the south opens onto the chapel. A two-bay arcade between chapel and chancel is enclosed by an oak screen with ogee-headed cusked lights. The chancel arch is pointed and moulded with plain abaci and corbelled shafts with moulded caps. Within it hangs a carved rood designed by John Coates Carter, installed in 1921. The chancel sits two steps above the nave, enclosed by a low oak screen and iron gates erected in 1898, with a carpeted floor. The altar stands high on several steps paved with red and buff patterned tiles. Oak panelling was added to the walls in 1927, with a trefoiled arch on the north side framing the aumbry. The roof features moulded arch-braces on corbels carved with king and bishop heads; the east bay is enriched with carved tracery and colour.

Fittings include an oak hexagonal pulpit with carved tracery to each face and stone base, and a tripartite oak reredos with brocade panels in the chancel, both dating to around 1890. The octagonal font of Painswick stone, donated by Niblett in 1848, has projecting heads of a king, queen, prince, and princess on its stem and an oak cover with an iron cross; it has been relocated to the west end of the south chapel. The pipe organ was built by Hill & Son in 1907; its stencilled case may be by C E Kempe & Co. The south chapel contains an early 20th-century oak chest altar.

The church houses a varied collection of stained glass. The east window dates to 1895 by C E Kempe. The south chapel's east window is from around 1865, restored in 1977, possibly by Heaton Butler & Bayne. The nave's west window depicts seven scenes from the life of Moses, dating to around 1870, by William Holland & sons of Warwick. Aisle windows depict various saints: two in the north aisle of around 1920 by George G Hunt; two in the south aisle from 1902–5 by Burlison & Grylls; one each in the western bays by E R Payne (1948) and Leonard Walker and Assistants (1947). The west window of the south aisle, dating to 1847 by Thomas Willement, is the only surviving example from an originally larger set of windows designed for the church by him. One window features decorative floral motifs and a panel commemorating the church's 100th anniversary in 1947.

Memorials include a tile mosaic World War One memorial from 1920 by George G Hunt, beneath which is a plain tablet World War Two memorial. A white marble tablet commemorates Sgt Thomas Durrent of the Gloucester Regiment, killed in France in 1916.

To the front on Kingsholm Road stands a low stone wall with gabletted Gothic piers topped with triangular stone caps, flanking three entrances.